Strawberries

Carolyn Wright, Rachel Donahue, Ranfei Xu, Zara Waheed

November 3rd, 2021

Research Question:

  • How has toxic chemical usage changed over time
  • and does this vary across different states?

Investigate overall toxin instances

  • Bar chart of counts across all years and states

Distribution of Carcinogens

Especially in California

  • California had 11 main Carcinogenic chemicals detected in strawberry yields.
  • They fall into the known, possible and probable categories.
  • The figure below shows a scaled plot of the distribution of Carcinogens detected in strawberries in California over time.

Total Carcinogens CA

the distribution of known carcinogens

the distribution of probable carcinogens

the distribution of possible carcinogens

Thoughts

Trends on the known toxins

Captan, Carbaryl and Iprodione

Related policy

California Office of Envirnomental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHNA) – Proposition 65

Further steps

Why Captan is still used as widely as it is if it is toxic?